Thread

An AI sovereign wealth fund isn't progressive – it's techno-imperialism

90 points · 65 comments · Anon84

velcrovan · 1790862426 · focus · HN ↗
I can’t read the article. Do they explain how it’s more imperialist than what we have now?
Using capital ownership to distribute the proceeds of an industry whose raw material was the creative output of everyone everywhere … seems like the neatest and most obvious possible solution to AI displacement and provenance. But I can see how it might make a few dozen people less likely to be billionaires.
1. alephnerd · 1790862665 · focus · HN ↗
  Gift article - <a href="https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/71bd10ba-e5fb-4b6e-9694-777753dc35f8" rel="nofollow">https://giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/actions/redeem/71bd10...
  But basically, the argument is that a government shouldn't accrue and own appreciating assets mixed with AI skepticism.
  1. velcrovan · 1790864482 · focus · HN ↗
    Thanks. I'm astonished how poorly written and poorly argued the piece is. No discussion or even mention of existing SWFs. Trying to frame SWFs as something leftists should oppose because of… some vague hand-waving about an Edwardian policy?
    SWFs are a great tool for reducing inequality and influencing corporate governance. see, e.g. <a href="https://peoplespolicyproject.org/project/creating-an-alaska-style-permanent-fund-in-washington-state/" rel="nofollow">https://peoplespolicyproject.org/project/creating-an-alaska-...
    alephnerd · 1790864717 · focus · HN ↗
    He's also been a major ideologue for what became Chat Control [0]
    > SWFs are a great tool for reducing inequality
    Closer to Europe, Norway and Ireland have also successfully used SWFs and SDFs.
    Edit: can't reply
    > "Journal of Democracy"
    It is a journal just like Nature. This is a paper he published within the journal. Policymakers don't read blogs.
    [0] - <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/liberation-technology-whither-internet-control/" rel="nofollow">https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/liberation-techn...
    ambicapter · 1790865855 · focus · HN ↗
    "Journal of Democracy"
    > The smartest analysis on democracy and authoritarianism around the world—straight to your inbox every week.
    Sounds like a rational and clear-headed individual.
2. StableAlkyne · 1790862918 · focus · HN ↗
  AI;DR* they want to build data centers in other countries that are less able to resist their construction. This consumes water and electricity of the host county. The central thesis is that if the less-than-willing exploitation of foreign resources for the enrichment of the more powerful country is imperialism, then this is a form of imperialism.
  * The clunky turns of phrase and jarring introduction of analogies reads strongly of Claude to me, at least
3. [deleted] · 1790863051 · focus · HN ↗
  [deleted]
4. MadrasThorn · 1790865980 · focus · HN ↗
  anything that gives US an advantage in any market/competitive arena is basically imperialist.
5. Fricken · 1790866147 · focus · HN ↗
  The purpose of any technology is to expand one's powers, and whatever those powers expand to is conquested. Bronze was imperialist but iron was more imperialist, and gunpowder was more imperialist than that. Oil was even more imperialist and now chips and AI are having a go at it. Even the harnessing of fire and the cultivation of spoken language was imperialist, and a necessary step towards today's AI boom. It's the the latest ring to rule them all.
  1. PAPPPmAc · 1790868407 · focus · HN ↗
    Interestingly to your example, there seems to be a rough consensus that the bronze age collapse (~12th century BC) was related to the fact that iron production was less centralized than bronze, which required multiple long-distance supply chains that could be monopolized by regional powers. Different folks point the causality in different directions.
    Some technologies are inherently more centralizing, some are less so.
    I agree that most technologies can be applied for imperialistic interests, and the tech space is full of things that seemed decentralizing and have since been captured, but it's not quite law.
    IC manufacturing is basically a modern global palace economy full of shipping and single-player choke points and large capital investments, so it leans hard to the centralizing side. It's less clear that AI will work that way, if it turns out that it is relatively practical to do useful work on locally hosted models it might end up being somewhat decentralizing.
    Or, we'll get technological and/or regulatory capture, end up paying rents to technofeudalist douchebags with data centers and proprietary models who bribe governments and peek at user behavior and try to use their already vast resources to preemptively capture any value before anyone else can, until the next major perturbation.

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